Science Fiction

Boardgame themed on Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

From the box:

Join the crew of the Enterprise on their travels through space.

Set out from your home starbase, crossing from one starpath to another on your intergalactic voyage. Take part in their exciting missions seeking out unexplored stars. As you hunt for secret Klingon outposts and investigate Black Holes, be on the alert for attacks from Hostile Aliens!

Complete three missions and head for your home starbase. The first starship commander to reach home wins this challenging space adventure game!

CloudAge is a strategy game from Alexander Pfister and Arno Steinwender. The award-winning authors have created a dark and dystopian world for 1 to 4 players.

Fifteen years ago, the mysterious secret society "Cloud" set fire to countless oil production sites and burned down large forests to destabilize the world. The resulting environmental catastrophe had disastrous effects on the entire planet. Now, years later, you travel above the dried-out landscape in your airships, searching for a better life. You visit cities, send out drones to collect resources, and battle Cloud militia.

An innovative sleeving mechanism makes a new, more immersive, form of resource gathering possible. Players try to predict which cloud-covered terrain will contain the desired amount of resources or where additional actions are possible. Resources allow players to develop useful upgrades for their airships or attract new crew members.

CloudAge is a mix of engine-building, deck-building, and resource management. The campaign system makes it easy to start playing quickly, with new elements being introduced into the game as players progress through the chapters. While you play, you also experience and help guide the story. If you prefer, you can also play standalone story spin-offs as single scenarios.

—description from the publisher

“Natural disasters will soon be a thing of the past!” proclaimed Professor Sêni Lativ, Project Chief of Meteorological Manipulation at Lightning Technologies. Tests of his new invention, the Weather Machine, showed positive results. Visions of quelling floods, subduing cyclones, and ending droughts made him smile.

In Weather Machine, you are scientists on Prof. Lativ’s team, tampering with local weather: adjusting rainfall for farms, maintaining wind and clear skies for ecological energy sources, and tweaking the temperature for resorts and sporting events. The prototype is quite effective so far; however, a pattern has emerged, revealing a worrying side effect: Each use of the Weather Machine also alters the conditions elsewhere on the planet — a “butterfly effect”.

"We must build a new prototype,” he announces as the agents shoot him sidelong glances; “…but this time we’re going to get it right.” The agents silently give a single, crisp nod of confirmation. “The government is funding this, and we will succeed.” As Prof. Lativ explains the plan, the need to secure suppliers for sufficient bots and chemicals is clear. In addition to the materials, time is of the essence; you must be focused and efficient to have any hope of reining this growing global terror, Earth’s atmosphere before conditions are too harsh for Homo sapiens and other species.

Note: The solo mode is NOT included in the base game's box. It is part of Weather Machine: Upgrade Pack.

Beyond the Sun is a space civilization game in which players collectively decide the technological progress of humankind at the dawn of the Spacefaring Era, while competing against each other to be the leading faction in economic development, science, and galactic influence.

The game is played over a variable number of rounds until a number of game-end achievements are collectively claimed by the players. The winner is the faction with the most victory points, which are obtained by researching technologies, improving their economy, controlling and colonizing systems, and completing various achievements and events throughout the game.

On a turn, a player moves their action pawn to an empty action space, then takes that action. They then conduct their production phase, either producing ore, growing their population, or trading one of those resources for another. Finally, they can claim up to one achievement, if possible.

As players take actions, they research new technologies that come in four levels. Each technology is one of four types (scientific, economic, military, commercial), and higher-level technologies must match one of the types of tech that lead into it. Thus, players create their own technology tree in each game, using these actions to increase their military strength, to jump to different habitable exoplanetary systems, to colonize those systems, to boost their resource production, to develop android tech that allows growth without population, and more.

The human race has exhausted all the energy available on planet Earth. If they are to advance into an intergalactic civilisation they must harness the power of a solar system. They must build a dyson sphere.

Solar Sphere is a dice placement/manipulation game with elements of engine building, resource management, and set collection. Set hundreds of years in the future in a time when competition will move mankind forward, but when collaboration is also sometimes necessary. In Solar Sphere, each player commands a mothership. Their primary task is to build a dyson sphere. But, with crew to hire and aliens attacking the sphere, there are many other ways to earn prestige and become the saviour of mankind.

In this dice placement game, players can manipulate their dice using drones. However, players have a limited supply of drones, which are also used to upgrade dice placement spots or to support in fights against aliens. Players can always recycle used drones to get them back into their supply. Or, spend them for instant benefits.

Players simultaneously start the turn by rolling their dice. Dice act as spacecraft and are sent, in payer order, to locations to gather resources, build the dyson sphere, build or recycle drones, upgrade worker spots, hire crew, and fight off aliens.

Crew come with their own unique benefits that will help players in a variety of areas. Chain crew abilities together to build a good engine, and retire them for extra benefits. Making space for new crew members.

As the game progresses, more aliens will arrive to defend a sun that they also need. Fight them off alone, or join forces with other players and share the rewards. However, if no one takes on the rebellious aliens, then you all lose points.

Solar Sphere combines a combination of mechanisms with a powerful theme to bring players an immersive experience.

—description from the designer